The civil service’s policy profession will be led by permanent secretaries Susan Acland-Hood and Gareth Davies, following Tamara Finkelstein’s departure from the civil service.
Acland-Hood, perm sec at the Department for Education, has been deputy head of the policy profession for the past five years, supporting Finkelstein’s efforts to strengthen the identity and capability of the policy profession across the civil service.
She has more than two decades of leadership across central and local government, and recently championed the development of a high-quality foundational learning offer about policy work in government.
Davies, perm sec at the Department for Business and Trade, has had a long-standing involvement in the profession. He has been a departmental head of policy and earlier in his career he led the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.
He started his career in the private sector, working across Europe and Asia, giving him an understanding of how policy and strategy are developed outside of the civil service.
Finkelstein retired from the civil service last month after six years as perm sec at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and five years leading the policy profession.
She said: “It has been my pleasure to lead the profession at a time when policy makers have helped steer the country through major challenges like Brexit, Covid and more. I am proud of what has been achieved and particularly the strong focus on building capability, improving diversity and strengthening the relationships with other professions especially science and analysis.”
Finkelstein added that she is “confident under the capable leadership of Susan and Gareth that this will go from strength to strength”.
Acland-Hood paid tribute to Tamara’s leadership over the past five years.
She said: “Tamara has brought her characteristic insight, passion and creativity to the leadership of the policy profession, challenging us to go beyond generalism and to step up to the challenges of the future.
“Gareth and I, as joint heads, take up the mantle determined to build on the great work she and many others have done.”
Acland-Hood said Finkelstein has laid “many of the foundations” for a strong policy profession, through initiatives such as the creation of the Policy Profession Standards in 2021.
The DfE perm sec said she and her fellow co-head Davies “want to lead a step-change in professionalism – through investing in first-rate learning and development for everyone in the profession and going further on what it means to become qualified as a policy professional”.
“We want to bring many more voices into policy, more powerfully – through increasing diversity, powerful multi-disciplinary teams, and participative methods that bring citizens and businesses into the room,” she said.
“We also see burgeoning opportunities to use data, digital and technology to transform our policy making.”
She added: “We are looking forward to discussing all these things and more at year’s flagship event, our autumn Policy Festival – watch this space for the exciting line up.”
Over the past three weeks the policy profession has attracted more than 900 new members, taking the total number registered on the policy profession website to more than 20,000. This follows a Cabinet Office campaign encouraging civil servants to join a profession to help develop their skills and their career journey.
Officials can find out more about what the profession offers at the remaining Civil Service Live events around the country including Newcastle today (Wednesday 2 July), London next Tuesday and Wednesday (8 and 9 July), Liverpool on 15 July, and Exeter on 17 July.